Beach Music

I just finished Pat Conroy's book, Beach Music.

Synchronicity is so often a part of my life and this time is no different. I read Prince of Tides and Beach Music in the last months of Conroy's life. He talks about his own death in the last few lines of the story and it feels right that I read it now, shortly after his funeral.

On the night that Bestest called to tell me Pat Conroy had passed away I was reading. It is a long book, close to 800 pages.

Wrapped up, almost swaddled, in a soft velour blanket and sitting snuggled up in my big recliner, I had lost myself in the words of a man who has touched me as no other writer I can remember has ever done.

Looking up I saw him standing in my door. Just inside the door. Not quite solid, but certainly not ghostly. I asked him why he would come to see me? I wondered why I wasn't afraid and really did wonder if my ego was creating this scene.

He quietly told me that he was with all the people who loved his books tonight.

I looked away and when I looked up again no one was there.

Of course I had probably dozed off, but it was a very comforting feeling.

Right now I don't think I want to read any more of his books for a while. I want to just savor these two. They have become a compendium of words that are more than a story.

Pat Conroy's books are a legacy for living . . . with passion and love and truth, in all its endless transformations.